


Lov* is a Four-letter Word

by Renee_Lytle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel's True Form (Supernatural), Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, I don't every know how to tag these things so, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27886588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renee_Lytle/pseuds/Renee_Lytle
Summary: Trueform!Cas makes an appearance in the barn scene of 15x20 and asks Dean a very important question. Just part 1 of a kind of fix-it fic.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	Lov* is a Four-letter Word

**Author's Note:**

> I don't necessarily think Dean should've lived by the end for 15x20 to be good storytelling, in fact, it might be great storytelling to have Dean die... but the way he died and ALL the other circumstances surrounding it is just SO ridiculous and I wanted to write some alternate endings. WHY I start "series" when I rarely finish them is beyond me but I have to post this so I can think about other things. Sorry.

He was dying. He was dying, and there was no angel to save him or a hospital anywhere near. He might make it if they took him off the nail, packed it with mud and hay, then drove like hell. But it just seemed like so much effort. He was ok with this. Maybe he even wanted this.

It was definitely easier this way.

A familiar screeching whine fills his ears, and both he and Sam have to put their hands to their ears. Somewhere a lightbulb bursts, and the tinkling is painful in Dean’s head. The rebar that’s punctured his lung is growing so hot he thinks it might fuse to his ribs. Sam is on the ground in front of him, screaming silently, his head feels like it might split (he knows what this means, doesn’t he? but his mind can’t bring the thought all the way forward) and then...

Quiet and calm. Sam is still on the ground, but he’s no longer screaming. He’s looking around to see what the hell is going on, his mouth moving, but Dean can’t hear a word. There are notes from some kind of instrument coming through the air all around him. It sounds like wind through reeds, a rough-cut flute, with no discernible melody. There’s also the sound of beads against hollow wood that reminds Dean of the rain-maker sticks he used to play with at gas stations. A drum beats from somewhere within the earth. 

Dean looks around but can’t see anything but Sam, who looks like he’s frozen mid-sentence, trying to tell him something. Time has stopped. His heartbeat speeds up, and he tries to lift his arms to defend himself from whatever this is, but his arms are no longer working, and his breath is barely there. Then the notes again, but there’s a rhythm to it now.

He closes his eyes and listens. Maybe this is how reapers reap now. Seems a little scary and a bit overkill, but he wasn’t in charge of that shit. 

**_ Hello Dean _ ** , the music around him says.

His chest squeezes tight. He can’t actually breathe or talk, but it doesn’t matter because he answers with a prayer.

_ Cas. _ His body shudders, and Dean hears himself let out a strangled sort of sob.  _ Please tell me it’s really you. _

**_ I am here, Dean. _ **

_ Where? _ He tries to look around, but his body is getting colder, and nothing is responding. His head is drooping, and he can only see the blood dripping down the post onto the hay-and-shit strewn floor. He prays,  _ well _ ,  _ this isn’t how I wanted to go out. _

**_ I know. _ **

There’s bitterness rising up in him suddenly.  _ How was I supposed to quit hunting? How was I supposed to tell Sam I wanted out after dragging him back in? _

**_ It is hard to live an authentic life when all you have done is live a lie. _ **

_ What are you Buddha now? _

A chuckle like raindrops on a metal roof. The sound of this new, or rather old, Cas laughing is the best thing he’s ever heard in his life, and that included the classics.

_ You told me your truth _ , Dean prays now,  _ and I. Cas I didn’t- _

**_ No. _ ** There’s a rumble through Dean’s mind, and the walls of the barn shake within the sphere of frozen time around them. His heart stutters, and his chest feels once again like it’s being crushed. 

It was too late to try and set anything right. He hadn’t asked Jack to get Cas from the empty. Dean didn’t know why he didn’t just ask Jack. He was sure Cas knew why, and he was sure it had something to do with his nasty soul, soaked in the blood of his mother at four and the semen of desperate men at ten.

**_ Did you not listen to me back in the bunker? _ **

He can at least give him this.  _ Of course I did. Those words are in my head every day. _

**_ Then why do you still call yourself a monster? _ **

_ Cas please _ .  _ Where are you? _

**_ You cannot look upon my true self as a human. _ **

_ But I can hear you. All those years ago it was just noise. Why can I understand you now? _

**_ You seem ready to hear it now. _ **

Dean’s heart pounded painfully, and the cut of sadness that went through him was all the way to the bone. The dull blade hacked into his very soul. He was a coward.

**_ Stop _ ** , Cas’s voice sang around him.  **_ Close your eyes. _ **

He closed them just as the screeching of wood and metal rent through the still air. Then something very, VERY big landed in front of him, and he thought of Sam frozen on the ground at his feet.

“Sam is safely back in the car,” said a voice right in front of him.

He couldn’t help it, he opened his eyes, and not even a fraction of a moment later, something covered them, pushing his head back against the post. The millisecond his eyes were open, the light surrounding him was so bright it burned. With his eyes clenched tight again, he waited for the burning to cease. Whatever was against his face wasn’t anything he’d ever felt before. It reminded him a little of dry ice smoke or a fog machine where it didn’t actually feel like anything but your mind filled in what it thought the sensation should be. Except this was warm with a cool ending. Perfectly balanced.

“Do you do anything you are told?”

_ What’s against my head right now? _

“It- would be hard to explain,” the voice in front and around him said.

_ Do you have tentacles? _ He hoped he was smiling but wasn’t sure.

“You are impossible.” The petulance didn’t match the impossibly perfect voice, but it was  _ all _ Cas. He wondered how many eyes he just rolled.

_ You leveled the barn didn’t you? _

A pause.

“I am very large, about the size-“

_ Of the Chrysler building yeah, I remember. _

Another pause.

“Dean, do you want to die?”

That question was too big. It had too many layers to ever be answered truthfully. Nothing he said would be a hundred percent true, but it wouldn’t be entirely false either. So why not take a stab?

_ I don’t want to live. No- I don’t want to live with- without _ . Not even his mind could get there.

Whatever was holding his head against the post softened, and then he felt something brush his cheek. He would give anything to be able to see Cas in his true form, as much as he liked his vessel, so he could look into every eye the Angel had. 

“You realize I can sense your mind?” Again there was the sound of raindrop laughter all around.

_ I’m kinda banking on it _ . Shame stung at the edges of his being, coward.

“I asked you to stop that.”

_ You  _ ordered _ me _ .

“I could beg it of you, and you would still regard yourself with disgust.”

Dean wasn’t sure if his heart was even beating anymore, but it would’ve stuttered to a halt if it had been it. Cas hadn’t responded to his confession. But then, it wasn’t really a confession, was it? Just a vague collection of feelings his mind didn’t dare to bring forward. 

Anger, always in defense of him, came up too fast to stop.  _ You died on me. _ _ You fucking said what you said, and then you left me before I even had the chance to- _

“Do you want to die Dean?”

_ I don’t want to live without you.  _ The relief that came from just thinking the words was so sweet he almost slipped away completely. So this was only a fraction of the release Cas had felt at the bunker? His mind practically faded to black but the part of Cas blocking his eyes jostled him. 

“I am here now. But that wasn’t the question.”

The moment of lightness he’d felt at the semi-confession turned to lead.

_ And where the hell have you been? When exactly did Jack rescue you? _

The ensuing silence only brought his blood to boiling. Then, “you are angry with me.”

_ Damn right I am. _

“Why?”

_ Because you could’ve come back! You could’ve told me you were alive again. _

“Why would I have done that?”

_ Because I deserve  _ something _ from the man who supposedly loves me don’t I? _

“Yes.” Cas was silent then, and something clicked in Dean’s mind. He would scoff if he could, but his body was very still now.

“Say it again,” Cas’s voice sang.

_ That was lame. _

“Dean.”

He tried to sigh and failed. The anger was gone—by an eons-old celestial being resorting to some psych bullshit 101.

_ I deserve- _

“Everything,” Cas finished for him.

Dean wasn’t sure there’d be much of a difference between a life in heaven and one here if he was going to heaven, which he better since he helped raise god for crying out loud, but he knew it wouldn’t be quite the same. He couldn’t help people in heaven like he could here. But maybe he could help without killing; he’d help without sacrificing pieces of himself. Maybe he could open a bar or a car shop. Work part-time and take actual vacations. He could live his truth, he could, but his truth also involved the Angel before him. There must be a reason Cas didn’t come to him now in his vessel, and Angels couldn’t hang around this plain of existence for long in their true form.

_ I don’t want to die Cas. Not yet. but I want- _

He felt his body lift up off the rebar, suddenly the only thing he  _ could _ feel, as it was ripped from him. He screamed inside his head and opened his eyes, but all he could see was a shifting, golden light flickering like flames. He realized they actually were flames at the same time the pain suddenly ratcheted up to a degree he’d never experienced before. He screamed again, this time from his actual mouth, and reached to grab onto something. Then, there was something mostly solid under his grasping hand but still moving, like lava without the devastating heat. Then the pain was just... gone. Cas was healing him.

“Wait, Cas!”

Then he was on the ground, and the chill was seeping through his jacket, and the night sky above him was so expansive he got dizzy just trying to see it all at once. There was no soreness or pain. No leaking of air from his lung. But the emptiness of the space Cas had just occupied felt like a black hole. The bastard just... left, again.

Dean sat up and looked around him. The trees that hadn’t been leveled in Cas’s landing were swaying. Time was normal again. The door to the impala swung open, and Sam jumped out, machete in hand, ready for anything. He’d scoff, but such that felt too good for the wretchedness consuming him.

“Dean?!” Sam was walking toward him in a crouch, taking in the obliterated barn. “What the hell?”

Dean only looked at him as he approached. There was no way to explain with any real significance what just happened to his little brother. He’d have to start back twelve years ago at a barn just like this. But Sam was also too smart to believe any old lie.

“It was Cas,” Dean said. His chest pinched at the name.

“He... did this?” Not, ‘Cas is alive?’ Or ‘where did he go?’ Sammy was just so used to all the crazy.

Dean stood up, and Sam helped him, looking around the back to check the wound. When he saw that it was gone, he squeezed Dean half to death in a hug.

“I’m alright,” Dean said and hugged back. “It’s ok Sammy.”

“I really thought that was the end,” his eyes were red and filling with tears again.

“Yeah I did too. Guess I owe that Angel, again.”

Sam smirked but only for a moment. “Yeah what the hell happened with that? Did Jack save him?”

Dean needed to drive, to move. Cas was out there somewhere without his vessel, just an Angel once again, thinking that Dean would rather live without him. Would Cas believe that he loved him now?


End file.
